Macy’s to St. Paul: Suck It!

Macy’s “Holiday Store Hours.” The sign on the doors of the St Paul Macy’s says the holiday hours end at 6 p.m. Saturday. The store will close in March. Happy effing St Patrick’s Day!

A few years ago, I popped into the Macy’s Department Store in downtown St. Paul looking for winter jackets for my three growing school boys, aged 7, 5 and 3. I couldn’t find any warm jackets in the children’s department, so I went looking for the Warm Coat Department I figured must be located somewhere else. I returned to the “children’s” area, puzzled, after a search of the store failed to turn up any jackets at all for anyone under adult size. “Say, where can you find a kid’s jacket in this store,” I finally asked a sales clerk — a rarity in the St. Paul Macy’s — who happened past.

The clerk was a friendly middle-aged lady who had worked for Macy’s and, before that, for Dayton’s when the store was still owned by a Minnesota company. “Oh, you can find children’s jackets at our Rosedale store,” she said, referring to a suburban mall. “Or you can go to our downtown Minneapolis store.” But I don’t want to drive 10 miles to find a jacket that should be in the “department store” near my office, I said. The woman looked a bit flustered, then swiveled her head to look around us and make sure no one else was within earshot.

“We’re not supposed to tell people this, but we don’t carry a lot of items like that because they want you to go to Rosedale or Minneapolis,” she said. “It’s terrible, I know: They don’t want people like you shopping down here.”

We ended up buying jackets for the boys online, from Land’s End: Cheaper, faster, no drive to Rosedale required. But I knew then that Macy’s was already pulling out of St. Paul: In effect, Macy’s was telling St. Paul to suck it. Today, it is official: The store will close in March.

I will never set foot in a Macy’s store again — anywhere.

Once upon a time in St Paul

If you know anyone in St Paul, chances are you have heard this kind of story many times: People going into a once-thriving department store looking for something only to be told You Can’t Buy That Here.
St. Paul people are not stupid: They stopped going to the Un-Department Store, which stopped serving them years ago. Really, trying to buy anything in Macy’s was maddening. Even if you COULD find what you were looking for, it was harder to find a sales clerk to ring it up for you than to find a parking spot outside.

I made my last (as it turns out) foray into Macy’s a few days before Christmas, to buy a few last-minute gifts. I got some slippers with dogs on them — the perfect gag gift — only to spend the next 20 minutes trying to buy them. I believe there were only two — TWO! — sales clerks on an entire floor right before Christmas. You not only had to believe in Santa, you had to be deluded about your chances of getting customer service if you visited Macy’s before Christmas.

I walked around the shrinking department store, missing its top (furniture, etc.) and basement (men’s clothing) floors since a 2002 “remodel” that really was more of a self-destruction and found that the inventory had shriveled even further since my last visit in the Fall. I could have bought a $60 box of chocolates, if I was made of money and if I could’ve attracted a sales clerk to the candy counter (I waited, in vain, for 10 minutes), but precious few of the many other items I was used to buying since I got my first Dayton’s credit card in 1970 were in sight.

I have been in friendlier — and busier — casket showrooms in a funeral home.

My grandmothers both worked in downtown St Paul department stores — my Irish-born one selling scarves, my Wisconsin-born one demonstrating toys. My mother even did some modeling for The Golden Rule. But none of them would recognize the dead storefronts. Where people once shopped and went to restaurants and watched movies, there now is a desert, populated mostly by government bureaucracies, corporate banks and dental offices who seem to have poached the once-pricey real estate in the downtown core. Next to the soon-to-be empty Macy’s stands the upscale blight of “Wells Fargo Place,” the former World Trade Center that ruined St Paul’s former main drag, Seventh Street, by cutting off the flow in the hopes of producing a boom. Instead, it was a bust. For a brief time, there were actual retail stores, restaurants and an impressive high-shooting water spout that brought crowds to the place. Now, it’s got bureaucrats, banks and empty storefronts. There is one restaurant, a Subway sandwich shop, that stays alive only because it is on a Skyway entrance to the empty caverns. Now, next door, Macy’s is going dark. Where once was the retail heart of the city — and where it was supposed to be again — there is… nothing. I hate that.

But don’t worry: Just eight blocks away, near the dead-end streets of Lowertown, there soon will be a hobby baseball stadium for a hobby baseball team that plays 50 home games a season against such worthy opponents as the Gary (Indiana) South Shore Railcats. This ballpark was St. Paul’s consolation prize for the $1 billion NFL stadium that Minneapolis is getting. And by consolation prize, I mean like the bag of frozen shrimp and the carton of diet fudge chocolate soda that I received as a consolation prize when I was a contestant on Wheel of Fortune and a frumpy choir director from Long Island walked off with thousands of dollars and a Caribbean vacation.

Something about downtown St Paul, despite all the happy Hoo-Ha about its increasing “coolness” factor, remains out of kilter, especially this winter of No NHL Wild hockey games. Dayton’s-slash-Macy’s, by their long-standing neglect of the St Paul store and their open disrespect/contempt for the city have not helped. They have hurt the city that tried so hard — too hard — to keep them going.

By this point, most St Paulites no longer give a damn about a department store that cared so little for them. Hey, Macy’s, you’re going away? Oh, too bad.

Nick- You’re right about Macy’s, but you’re not right about St. Paul. The City (starting with Lowertown and moving up the road to downtown and 7th street) is booming compared to where it was 12 years ago when I first arrived. It’s more vibrant and increasingly attractive to new businesses (not because City govt. is writing checks to recruit folks, but because it is a great place to work). We have an uphill battle, but the past you remember is (no offense, my friend) now the distant past. A new City is rising that will overcome the challenges of maintaining a thriving downtown only 15 minutes away from another thriving downtown. The ballpark, the housing, the Lunds, the revised Farmer’s Market, etc. etc. all matter. We have to invest in and believe in the future we want. The distant past is not coming back, but the present is better than 2000 was on many levels, and the future looks good. People visit our office in the Hamm Building from around the country and comment that it is one of the most impressive urban office locations they’ve seen. Let’s tell that story. With due respect to your Grandmother’s, their St. Paul is long gone, but St. Paul is still an amazing place to live and work.

Scott: No offense, but the past I remember is the past most St Paul taxpayers remember. And it’s not rosy, just real. Also, I worked in downtown St Paul from 1986 thru 2003, and am working there again now. I am not blind to the good things going on. But nor am I looking through magic glasses. The retail heart of the city is dead and I am not hearing any great visions for its future.

World class entertainment. Safe urban living and working. Thriving small and mid-sized businesses with a handful of large companies that recognize that the suburbs suck. That’s the vision. What should the vision be?

fortunately, in my trips to United, stopoffs at Cossetta’s has not extended my stay. there is a good antique section in that area of West 7th (old 8th) down to Mancini’s. the city of neighborhoods doesn’t have much for landmarks any more.

Poor management has plagued Macy’s for decades. In the 1980s, I lived on East 31st Street in Manhattan, about 10 blocks from Macy’s flagship store, at Herald Square. On one memorable day, I was flipping through the Sunday New York Times and spotted a full page ad for a white sale. A particularly striking set of sheets dominated the ad. I was in the market for a new set of sheets and hot-footed it over to Macy’s flagship store. The store had the sheets — in twin sizes only. After I found a clerk — no easy task — I asked her to call other Macy’s to have a king set transferred to the 34th and Broadway address. No go. Not a single store had them. I ended up buying the sheets, over the phone, from Fortunoff. That’s when I bid goodbye to Macy’s, circa 1988. I comforted myself with the knowledge that Macy’s had squandered tens of thousands on a full-page ad in the Times, only to tatter its reputation with anyone who showed interest.

Reminds me of the day I tried to buy a Christmas ornament at the Mall of America Macy’s. The clerk recognized my voice from a local talk radio station, where I held down the only “liberal” talk slot. She then began insulting me and my Communist ideology, until I told her where she could stick her ornament Boundary violation, I think.

Not sure how guilty Macy’s is of this, but I am sick of the constant store “resets.” I think we have Target to blame for this, but increasingly retailers seek to boost sales by constantly moving products, forcing customers to roam through more of the store and (hopefully) buying more than they had planned to. That or they go postal.

I do not feel like a consumer anymore. When I go into a big box store I feel more like prey.

brought back memories of what a true ‘retail’ experience could be. when you took the bus or tram to the downtowns and had too much to carry back….they delivered your purchases.

i remember when young quinlans ran itself out of town (that top floor discount area with the new mgmt was tacky … no more fashion luncheon at the fountain room with grandma when would-be young ladies and their squirmy baby brothers learned what a salad fork was and later made the trip to the handkertchief department to purchase refined embroidered examples as a single. not bulk item)

i remember when donaldson’s changed and ran its highland store out of business.
we had some good retailers once upon a time .. and not just nostalgia for young q’s and powers.
daytons got out in time.

like the city of mpls and its attitude toward libraries, parks and nhood organizations…you can’t put lipstick on a pig and call it suzy parker.

i never visited the st paul murphy’s store (lost twin cities III, gordon parks ), but i understand that was a memorable moment in twin city retail history.

i am disturbed that shorting st.paul inventory was meant to drive people to the other macy stores…all along realizing that if they closed early they would have to repay the st paul taxpayer subsidy with interes. disurbed but i guess not shocked.

great comment, mr. gislason:
” I do not feel like a consumer anymore. When I go into a big box store I feel more like prey”

add the taxpayers to the ‘prey’.

it was a different age….later upstart target stores look ‘refined’ in comparison to current conditions…. and nostalgic. but nostalgia don’t pay the bills as mm’s diamonds are a girls best friend would sing.

i always thought the st paul daytons store architecture had all the charm of soviet socialist realism without any minimalist ‘charm’. ……and i had a close up look at that in ussr/east germany/jugoslavia in the early 60′s.

Contrast today’s Macy’s, racks reminiscent of Arlan’s, with what it was in the ’50′s. Check out “Don’t Eat the Daisies” with Doris Day and David Niven: after buying a broken down country house on Long Island, Doris proceeds to whip it into shape and redo the whole thing in 2 weeks, going to Macy’s in the City to get all her upholstery, etc., for the lovely abode. It was a different time!

Don’t blame the taxpaying hipsters for the demise of downtown St. Paul. (Referring to you’re mpr quote.) Those hipsters live, pay taxes and spend money in downtown. And don’t complain about the people who have opened businesses and invested money in downtown St. Paul. What’s “glittery” to you, is vibrant and thriving to someone’s business. Instead, focus on the businesses–like Macy’s–who are giving up on downtown or businesses who aren’t even considering downtown.

Department stores are a dying breed. Nick’s lack-of-service experiences can be duplicated at other downtown department stores in other cities over the last few decades — though I am pleased to get fine service and products whenever I venture into Herberger’s on University Avenue in St. Paul. Management attitude seems to be key.

As a new downtown resident, I have a number of fresh impressions of St. Paul’s city center. Most of them have had to do with the vast empty spaces that bestride the skyway system. And although I’ve only ever visited it on Saturday mornings, Macy’s has been the most eerily empty of them all because it’s the only store that claims to be “open.” But the other impression has come in my taking walks around the town on the sidewalks. Lowertown is quaint. Rice Park is quaint. Between the two of them are some of the most pedestrian-hostile parcels of commercial property I have ever seen. It’s surface parking lots and walls of granite and cement. Absolutely ugly. There is no single greater example of that than Macy’s. I can’t wait for that building to come down so that something more human and beautiful can replace it. Almost any sort of development would be better than what’s there now.

[...] it close years ago?” (The answer is government subsidies. The other answer, if you read Nick Coleman’s account of trying to actually shop there, is that it was actually was closed for all these years, even though it was technically [...]